June 21: Would You Converse With Royalty? (Vol. 28, pp. 99-110)

Another plug for reading, this time by John Ruskin, another man whose work I'd not encountered until I discovered this series. He loses it at the end when he starts praising Milton, but his essential theme — reading makes one an educated human being — is undeniable.

June 20: No Salt for These Birds (Vol. 29, pp. 403-413)

It's hard to balance the Darwin of "The Origin of Species" with the Darwin of "The Voyage of the Beagle," where today's selection is drawn. While "Origin" advanced scientific knowledge, "Beagle" is merely a chronicle of white dudes frolicking with among the savages. You could easily excise "Beagle" from this series, and no one would utter the slightest protest.

June 19: Freaks of the Dog Fad in England (Vol. 35, pp. 350-356)

Is there no element of the Elizabethian era that the editors of the Harvard Classics can't avoid including? Apparently not, judging by today's selection, "Our English Dogs" by Raphael Holinshed.

June 18: Cinderella Lives Today (Vol. 17, pp. 98-104)

The original version of this story by the Grimm brothers, with more humiliation, more blood and more anger than the Disney-fied, sanitized version most are now familiar with. Great stuff!

June 17: Risked His Scalp in Prayer (Vol. 43, pp. 138-146)

John Elliot, another white man trying to hustle the Indians during the bloody King Phillip's War, held a prayer meeting this day in 1670 with a neighborhood tribe and tells the story in his "Brief Narrative."

From a distance of three centuries, it is amazing how presumptuous the English were — that the native peoples whose land they invaded were heathens that needed to be Christianized. How many had to die because of this nonsense?

June 16: Spirits at the Top of the World (Vol. 18, pp. 415-428)

Lord Byron's "Manfred" was published this day in 1817, so we get the second scene from this dramatic poem. More fantasy and hallucinatory nonsense.

June 15: Strikers Storm the Tower of London (Vol. 35, pp. 60-72)

On this day in 1381, a rebellion against the King of England, led by a man named Wat Tyler, was put down — but not before Tyler's ragtag rebels laid siege to the Tower of London, killed several of the King's ministers and generally terrorized the ruling monarchy. The details are in Jean Froissart's "Chronicles," a history of the Hundred Year's War between France and Britain in the 14th and 15th centuries.

Wat Tyler's Rebellion is portrayed by Froissart as a bad thing. Today, Tyler and his rebels would probably be called "premature anti-monarchists."